Jonathan Kozol "Amazing Grace" Quotes

First of all, it was really hard to pick just 3 quotes. Kozol had so many eye-opening, jaw dropping quotes throughout his. here are just 3 that I thought spoke the most to me.

1. "The house in which these children live, two thirds of which are owned by the City of New York, are often as squalid as the houses of the poorest children I have visited in rural Mississippi, but there is none of the greenness and the healing sweetness of the Mississippi countryside outside their windows, which are often barred and bolted as protection against thieves" (Kozol 4). 
    -Kozol makes a huge statement here by comparing two relatively similar "poor" areas but with one major difference; the children in Mississippi have backyards to go out and relax and "heal" in. The children of New York have windows that don't even open! These children live in very poor homes with little to nothing, with a concrete backyard if any, and all without being able to taste the sweet, fresh air because their windows don't even open. This is important to the text because it shows that just because someone is labeled as poor, doesn't mean they are all the same. Seven out of 800 children don't qualify for free school lunches. You can describe poor in three different "classes"; you have the ones who receive reduced-price lunch, they can be consider the upper class, you have the ones who receive free lunch, they are the middle class, and then you have the ones who can't even afford to go to school, these are the lower class of the poor. Kozol is comparing the "poor" classes of the nation because not every "poor" person has the same situation. 

2. "In one of the most diseased and dangerous communities in any city of the Western World, the beautiful old stone church on St. Ann's Avenue is a gentle sanctuary from the terrors of the street outside" (Kozol 6). 
    -This was so powerful to read. To think that this community is just outside our own community. This is New York- the Bronx, and Harlem. The stories Kozol tells about kids born with HIV and AIDS and how they have a children's park with teddy bears hanging from tree branches for the children of junkies to play with. These children have no real future because they have no where to go for help. Yes, the church and state tries to help them as much as they can, but its never enough. There is one quote that goes along with this quote about the beauty that the Church possesses. "There are children in the poorest, most abandoned places who, despite the miseries and poisons that the world has pumped into their lives, seem, when you first meet them, to be cheerful anyway" (Kozol 6). There are two beauties in this community and its the Church and the children, who despite having nothing, have such happy dispositions. 

3. "In emergency conditions, if space heaters can't be used, because substandard wiring is overloaded, the city;s practice, according to Newsday, is to pass out sleeping bags. 'You just cover up... and hope you wake up the next morning" (Kozol 4). 
    -OH MY GOD! That is all I could think when I read that last part! I could never imagine having to hope that my kids would be warm enough to make it through the night. Never knowing if you'd have heat on a December night or if you would have one less child the next morning because you don't have heat. This quote is only one paragraph after the first quote I chose. These people have less then nothing. They ave fear and worry. No one should have to go without heat or a sturdy roof over their head. I just can't get this father's words out of my head. Parents always strive to give their children more then they had and make sure they live a good life but its almost impossible to do that when you're struggling to make it through one cold night. No one should have to live like this. And in most cases, its not a choice. It goes along with Delpit and Johnson's works on gaps and privilege. 

Its going to take an act of Amazing Grace to get us through the land of limitation, class gaps, and powers of privilege an turn us toward everyone getting along!